CNN
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President Joe Biden has been celebrating Labor Day in Pittsburgh on-and-off for more than a decade, twice using the city’s parade as a testing ground while he contemplated a presidential run.
When he returned to the city Monday, other races were front and center, including Pennsylvania’s increasingly nasty Senate contest. Yet over the coming weeks, Biden’s own political strength will be put to the test as he embarks upon his most intensive in-person politicking since before the Covid-19 pandemic.
In Wisconsin and Pennsylvania on Monday, Biden heralded his economic record at events with union crowds. But he also hit back at “extreme” Republicans he deemed “Trumpies” as he endeavors to render the upcoming vote not just a referendum on his own record but a choice between himself and the chaos cultivated by former President Donald Trump.
In Pittsburgh, Biden referred to his predecessor simply as “the former, defeated, President.”
“It’s clear which way he wants to look,” he said. “It’s clear which way the new MAGA Republicans are. They’re extreme.”
“Trump and the MAGA Republicans made their choice,” he added later. “We can make ours: We can choose to build a better America or continue down this sliding path.”
Earlier, in Wisconsin, Biden sought to differentiate between traditional Republicans and those who have rallied behind Trump.
“I want to be very clear up front. Not everyone Republican is a ‘MAGA Republican.’ Not every Republican embraces that extreme ideology. I know, because I’ve been able to work with mainstream Republicans my whole career,” Biden said at Laborfest in Milwaukee to a cheering crowd of union workers.
“But the extreme MAGA Republicans in Congress have chosen to go backwards, full of anger, violence, hate and division,” he said. “But together we can and we must choose a different path: forward.”
Democrats hope to flip two Republican-held Senate seats in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, and their success or failure will be viewed as a key indicator of the party’s – and Biden’s – political power ahead of the 2024 presidential contest.
Biden’s own political future was the subject of anxious speculation over the summer as the 79-year-old President suffered low approval ratings and a string of setbacks. Biden’s intentions remain a lingering question, though he insists he plans to run again.
Pittsburgh was where Biden headed in 2015 and 2018 as he considered previous presidential runs. Marching in the city’s parade those years, he was met with enthusiastic calls of “run, Joe, run.”
On his visit Monday, Biden swapped the parade for a union picnic with members of the United Steelworkers. He mingled with the crowd for a stretch before his speech, tossing a beanbag with kids and taking photos.
Before emerging into the crowd, Biden met privately with Democratic US Senate candidate, Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke earlier this year that took him off the campaign trail, in their first face to face of the campaign.
For much of the summer, it remained an open question whether Biden would be a welcome guest with Democrats or shunned by candidates looking to separate themselves from a historically unpopular president.
When Biden visited Cleveland in July to deliver an economic speech, Ohio’s Democratic Senate candidate, Rep. Tim Ryan, declined to attend. He opted to campaign in another part of the state instead.
Other Democratic candidates declined to say explicitly whether they wanted Biden to join them on the campaign trial in the fall.
“I will welcome anybody to come to Arizona, travel around the state at any time. As…
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